Christoph Niemann is an artist who doesn't rely on Photoshop or other software to create optical illusions, just real paintings and objects. His day job is creating insightful cartoons for the New York Times, Times Magazine and other publications, but whenever time allows, these whimsical creations ensue. The series is called "Sunday Sketches".
At first glance, these vessels and candle holders appear to be no more than unfinished line drawings on white paper. But the Kishu collection by Maya Selway is actually a functional set of sculptural home decor items, crafted from oxidized copper and weighted carefully to help them balance.
I was instantly attracted by these vessels as at first I thought they were drawings with a flower, a bit like what Christoph Niemann's work, but I then realize that they are actually standing and functioning, also they may only look like this from this certain angle, and from anywhere else it would not look like a vessel, this is very inspiring as I am thinking of doing something playing with visual illusions for my outcome.
This caught my attention because at first I thought it was made of paper, but it is ceramic, I have always been very interested in ceramics because you can turn something soft into very hard thing, however they still look very soft and very fragile, but for this week it is impossible for me to work with ceramics as I don't have enough time with all the interviews and dentist appointments, but it is definitely something that I would like to experiment in the future.
As I started looking for inspirations around me for my object week project, I find Christoph Niemann's work very interesting as he uses his imagination on basically everything, without the help of softwares he is still able to make something into another, he created the most ordinary things into something completely different, that we would never thought would relate, just by altering the position of these objects. I am quite interested in optical illusions so I think looking at things like this could really help me start.
Felice Varini (born in Locarno in 1952) is a Paris-based, Swiss artist who was nominated for the 2000/2001 Marcel Duchamp Prize. Mostly known for his geometric perspective-localized paintings in rooms and other spaces, using projector-stencil techniques.
Polish-born artist Barbara Licha now lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Though she also works in paint and other forms of mixed media.
Her tangled wire sculptures of figures in various poses and states of suspension really caught my eye, and I think wires are quite nice and easy to work with, however sizing would be important, as I personally think if the whole structure is too small the visual effect would be less attractive.
Dudi Ben Simon
Dudi Ben Simon, a creative director from Tel Aviv, who does something similar. Dudi creates fun optical illusions by cleverly blending two unrelated objects into one visually recognizable piece: “Since studying history of art at school I was fascinated with what can be made by using objects and daily pieces when they are disconnected from their original use,” he explains.
I found this artist when I was researching for Christoph Niemann, because they are kind of doing very simillar things, however he barely uses drawings, he uses two unrelated object to create another.
Note that these images were not ‘photoshopped’, nor do they use painted glass, it is a bit like the 'OK-GO' video I researched during the first week.
A sketchy-feeling sculpture, again this looks like something but it is actually not, playing with illusions.
I was also looking at some packagings and card/envelope folding ideas, and I realised Japan is particularly good at those, they produce lots of humanized designs with very good visual appearance and usage, I am a big fan of Japanese simplicity designs, so I think it is always good to check out what people make around the world.
Looking through some paper engineering books, I do like the effects but I think they are very difficult, as we have to make the measurement for them to fit perfectly within pages and to be foldable, but I am still very fascinated by they way they are presented; as a book so I can flip though and reveal a 3 dimensional piece and then when closing the page they would be fold.
I did some more paper engineering work today, exploring the possibilities and outcomes we can transform from just a plain piece of paper.
I looked at one of my classmate's pop-up book that he bought in a book shop, I was amazed by the size of the pop-up book, it must have taken a long time to design, and the most interesting thing is the little house in the middle never changed, but its surrounding area change everytime you flip the page.
scanimation comb
Combining object with image making techniques within packaging designs.
metro art project
An art project made on Frederiksberg metro station in Copenhagen, Denmark. The silhouettes are persons who all have had some kind of relation to Frederiksberg. The small animations that reveal when the doors open and close, either illustrate the profession of the individual persons, or simply welcome the passengers entering the metro. Also when the doors open and close, the fractal lettering assemble and form the name of those persons.
I think the idea of this metro door scanimation is amazing, as it utilise the movement created by the automatic doors, so it is almost passive, however I think due to the speed of the doors, the animation is too fast for people to see clearly, if the speed can be slower would be a better project.